Mugicha/Genmai Pics

Since there's been some chat about "roasting your own" lately, I thought I'd share some pics of my home roast. This is a combo of roasted organic pearl barley, organic short-grain rice, and organic wild rice... pan-roasted on the stovetop in a skillet. The total cost of the rice and barley used to make a large cannister of mugicha-genmai was under $4.00 and will last me for a month or more.

To brew, I put about 2 tablespoons of the dry roasted grain in a large decanter, pour about a cup of boiling water over it, and let it cool... then I add cool water and stick it in the fridge. When the liquid level gets low, I add more cool water and let it sit overnight. I can easy get 3 or 4 days worth of infusion from this, and probably more. The flavor just won't quit.

I find the taste very roasty, smooth, no bitterness, and very noticeable sweet finish with no sweetener added... I think this is the starch coming out of the grains. Chip has done some blending with blendable sencha and mugicha and is very happy with the results and I will be trying this. But for these photos, there is no tea leaf in this brew... just the grain.

Sarah,
Thanks for posting your photos. I was wondering what your mugicha-genmai looked like after reading that you had tried it. I've never tried this in any form, it looks interesting! Does it taste like tea or grain-ish?

geeber1 wrote:Sarah, Thanks for posting your photos. I was wondering what your mugicha-genmai looked like after reading that you had tried it. I've never tried this in any form, it looks interesting! Does it taste like tea or grain-ish?

Definitely more grainish than tea-ish, but really tasty. A darker roast, brewed strong, tastes more similar to coffee than to tea... but I like it lighter. I am looking forward to blending it with some sencha.

Yeah, darker roasts definitely smell like coffee in the cup but are still sweetish. I like them lighter since I do not like coffee, but a coffee drinker would feel some kinship with the darker ones. Regardless, the taste is sweeeet.

I finally got around to my first attempt at roasting barley and some unusual rice today. I will be trying one of them tonight. I am looking forward to serious blending with other true tea components.

MOD EDIT by Chip: I moved this to green teas. In addition, I will do a post quoting from the other related current topic, making this the official genmai/mugi experimentation topic.

The other topic is more related more to buying it already made.

So, anyway ... wemt shopping today!

I picked up a few different rices today to experiment with.
Some short,
some long grain,
brown,
white,
some interesting blends.
One blend contains Texmatt brown,and red rice with pearled barley and "rye berries." Could be interesting???
I also have a deep red rice called "sweet rice" from a Korean friend that I will experiment with, no, it is not sweetened. but will definitely color a brew either red or brown.

And a stainless steel pan vs the teflon I had been using.

And now a question. I was reading labels and noticed some needed to be cooked (if I was cooking rice) up to 45 minutes which I presume are the minimally processed rices. Then I came across a few that needed to be cooked only 15, one indicated it was parboiled. But some did not. The one intrigued me and made me wonder if such a product might give me better results for genmai, or I at least thought it was worth trying. It contains Texmatt white, brown, wild, and red rice. The rice grains appear slightly puffed and rougher looking.

So, had anyone experimented with rice that would require shorter cooking time, if you were cooking?

One is what I have been using from a Nature store, I am thinking minimally processed, not "pearled." The grains are smaller and are organic. More white than pearled. It likely still has some of the bran exterior and is only slightly hulled.

I picked up a pearled today, had to google "pearl" to find out that this has all the "healthful" bran polished off. But this might make the flavor more easlily extracted when brewing?

I wonder if the bran is soluble when brewed on the first one, making the mugicha brew even more healthy?

And to tie this to green tea. By pan firing a decent sencha (or bancha if need be, or even kukicha), this becomes more like a genmaicha. The same can be done for mugicha. Pan firing of sencha requires a lot more care unless you just like burnt tea.

Or, you can add the sencha or bancha not pan fired, this will give you a more subtle brew.

BTW, when I VERY LIGHTLY pan fired a second flush sencha this Spring and brewed it by itself, the brew had a remarkable, yet subtle, barley character. This is similar to Special Hika sencha from Rishi, at a fraction of the price.

Thus far, I have not done any quick-cook rice, but I do have some I could try... and haven't found any barley locally other than the pearl barley. Let me know how the more raw barley turns out, and if it is good, I will look for some at Whole Foods next trip. I am wondering if the more coarse exterior will interfere with the browning process.

I still haven't mixed any sencha with my mugigenmai, but I am gonna do this soon.

I have had some pretty good success with brown rice and mixing with a med. grade sencha to make my own genmaicha....Im really interested in trying the barley.....It would be great if you could post some pics of your roasting Chip!

So I tried toasting some rice in the frying pan. It's really easy and fast! I was surprised!

The rice doesn't look like the Genmai cha rice, nor does it taste like it, but it's not bad as a snack. The tea just ends up tasting like burnt popcorn.

I tried Jasmine and Sticky rice, and the Sticky is definitely more Genmai cha-like. I found I had better luck if I rinsed the rice several times before I toasted it. It also absorbed a bit of water and they softened up a bit, even after toasting, so they make a great snack food.